[closed]

[starspangled]

Who: Steve Rogers & Bucky Barnes
Where: Steve's room - 111
When: June 7th
What: Steve returns from a canon update to find Bucky sitting vigil outside his door.
Warnings: AOU spoilers, angst, tbd.



[The air goes from being too thin to being heavy and humid in a single breath. Steve gulps it anyway as he lifts his head to take a look around the boiler room. He knows this place... That doesn't do much for his confusion, not when it just brings up questions that he didn't have before.

It's been a year, but it all rushes back to him once he step outside that door. The hallways, the stairwells, his room. Steve remembers it all, along with the others who were trapped here with him. Some where from his world, some weren't, but he can't understand how he could just forget about them, like someone flipped a light switch inside his head and threw them all into darkness. Did he escape or did they let him go? If it was escape, then how? And if the other thing, why? (But wasn't that always the question of the day in this place?)

Everything seems muted here, dreamlike, and Steve stops more than once to turn and look behind him, catching a glimpse of everything from a Hydra trooper to Ultron himself, making his shoulders tense even as they fade right in front of his eyes. Ghosts, but not ones he can blame the hotel for. Steve lives with his fair share of 'em.

So when he finally reaches his room and sees Bucky sitting outside his door, he expects him to fade into nothingness too.

But he doesn't.]

Buck...

Comments

[dislocked]

[ There are many reasons why Bucky ends up outside Steve's door, time after time like a stray who has lost and found a home, only to have it lost to him again. He keeps watch silently, quietly, leaning against the door of it, saying nothing in the days he had been gone, leaving only for food, to check up on the others.

Steve's absence is keenly felt; like there's a hole in the world and nothing, not even time, can come close to sealing it over. The hotel is all the gloomier for it, and while in the beginning Bucky feared him dead, the undisturbed door and the jarring lack of evidence speaks to the contrary.

Gone, then. Gone.

Did he escape or did they let him go?

Bucky hears footsteps and lifts his head, quietly curious. He knows the familiar cadence of it, would know it even in death, in his deepest thoughts, and he swallows hard, both guilty and relieved that he's here and alive, right back in the thrall of this hotel and its mystery owners. Steve looks older. Sadder; bittersweetness mixed with relief.

The Winter Soldier is unshaven. Tired, but he raises his head and something sparks in the depths of his dark, dark eyes when he looks at him. ]

You're late. [ He says dryly. ] Breakfast was five hours ago.